Monday, August 13, 2012

Kara McKormick is told she’s auditioning to star in a new teen variety show. But it’s what she isn’t told that could change her life.

The feisty New Yorker moves to sunny Orlando to participate in a month-long audition, where she’ll live with nine other contestants and an eccentric housemother. Kara knows that the show already has a big-time celebrity lined up for the co-host, but she doesn’t know who it is.

Chad Beacon quickly rose to fame after winning America’s Next Star, but he doesn’t want his entire career to be about singing. There is so much more he wants to do—like act. The new variety show sounds like the perfect next step for him, but his parents want him to have a co-star who shares his faith since they’ll be spending so much time together.

Acting is high on Kara’s priority list. But a relationship with God? Not so much. In fact, she’s tried to stay away from anything religious. But God is after Kara’s heart and He’s put people in her life who are showing her there’s far more to Christianity than rules and judgment.

And just when it seems that Kara’s going to have to give up her acting dream, God reveals that she may have a starring role after all—in a story so big only He could write it.

My review:

I really enjoyed this book as you can see by my rating. This book is target to the teen or young adult reader. With that said, I think this book would be fine for an advanced reader of a younger age. So many books targeting this age group are filled with vampires, werewolves or some other paranormal creature. It's tiring really and this book was refreshing in that it had none of that.

The lead character, Kara, was well written. I enjoyed her bold attitude even before she became a believer. I loved how the author used her friend Addy as a witness without her being overbearing. The subtle ways the author showed the love of Christ to Kara, was refreshing. Chad's character really helped to set the foundation for the book very well. He was a believable character as were his parents and his housekeeper Flora was hilarious but great! Again, it was refreshing to see such a great story without all the sleaze (and no vampires or werewolves!). While there were romantic relationships in the book, they were presented tastefully and clean.

The author did and excellent job of showing Kara's path to God. I thought the story she told was realistic in today's world of reality shows. The competition, the disregard for others by some of the characters was believable. The twist at the end with one of the house characters was kind of expected but was presented well.

I really didn't have complaints about this book. I would let my 11 yo read this book even though it involves high school age characters.

Thank you Booksneeze for a copy of this book for the purpose of review.

About Me

Just to introduce myself, I'm a wife to one :-), Mom to three and Grandma to three. We live on the East Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region. Beside spending time in the Word, I also like to read a variety of books, digital scrapbook, spend time outdoors and photography. You can read my blog here: Take a Walk With Me